Let Me Lead
by dances with albatross
Summary: Everything that they did was backwards. But it was very much like them, and they always worked through it. Maybe that was why it made them work so well – it was what had them wondering what on earth had taken them so long. From a prompt: "Don and Sloan saying I love you for the first time."


**Author's Note [1]:** So this fic was born from a prompt in my tumblr ask box: "Don and Sloan saying I love you for the first time." It was originally going to be ~500 words of drabble but then 3k+ happened. So I hope you like it.

Much like the show itself, I wanted this fic to include around real life media events and so part of this story takes place the day of the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon and also references the September 11th 2001 attacks. I understand that some who were effected by these events may read this, but as a native New Yorker and someone with friends located in Boston I tried to take extreme care in writing about it delicately and the events truly server as a catalyst for the movement of the story. I apologize if anyone is upset by it and hope that my brief coverage is acceptable.

* * *

Everything that they did was backwards. No one who knew them would ever say that their relationship was traditional. And it was something that he liked to point out to her often.

She took it as a challenge. She liked taking charge and she loved that he was secure enough to let her. She couldn't count the number of men she'd been with who were, legitimately, too intimidated by her intelligence. Don accepted it about her, marveled at it, and also put her in her place when she did get carried away.

She kept him on his toes, she would insist, and normally he was okay with it except for a few times, when Don Keefer – occasionally searching for his primal sense of masculinity, would ask if she was ever going to let him lead for once. But she would just laugh and he would shrug it off – so she assumed it was fine.

Still, part of Don was programmed to believe he had to be a certain kind of guy – the kind of guy he'd tried to be when he'd asked Maggie to move in even though he'd always known they were wrong for each other.

For example, the first time he'd ever taken her out to dinner, it had been to a fancy restaurant out of his price range and she'd quickly deduced he had only taken her there because _Page Six_ once reported that one of the New York Giants had taken there a year ago. She'd gotten mad and stormed out, the following night she'd texted him an address that led him to a diner where she claimed they had the world's best cheesecake and he liked all of the songs in the little tableside jukebox. It quickly became their place.

Sloan wasn't interested in the type of man he thought he _should _be – she wanted the man he _was_.

He didn't always understand that, and she wasn't the best at explaining it (or anything) eloquently to him.

Occasionally, it caused minor fights - frustration bubbling over and erupting at inappropriate times, much to Charlie Skinner's chagrin.

Everything that they did was backwards. But it was very much like _them_, and they always worked through it. Maybe that was why it made them work so well – it was what had them wondering what on earth had taken them so long.

Everything that they did was backwards, but they like it that way – until one Friday night.

* * *

**Friday, April 12, 2013, 11:22 p.m. EST.**

She was feeling just a little too sassy. And that was the only way he could describe it, even if he'd never use the word out loud because he is sure she wouldn't completely approve.

She'd come off a broadcast talking to a Senator about the debt ceiling and had positively owned him. He watched her with a sparkle in his eye as she walked around his office, talking about what a rush it had been and all of her ideas for her next segment on News Night.

"Easy there, tiger, reel it in," he warned a bit, semi-serious, but also not wanting her to get ahead of herself before Will and Mack weighed in and possibly sucked some of the wind from her sails.

"But you love that about me," she insisted with a smart tone and a smirk and he faltered, because he never has said those words and while normally, he did not mind that they were backwards, he felt like that moment should have been sometimes reserved – slightly sacred. His silence made her pause, and he saw her brow furrow and her mind race – the laughter that had just been etched on her features quickly disappeared.

He could read her thoughts. _Maybe he doesn't love me._

And, in true Sloan fashion, she began to ramble herself into a deeper whole, "I mean, the same way that we all love Mack for being a paradoxical scatterbrained genius and Neal for being obsessed with the power of social media yet socially awkward, people love that I'm such a nerd yet so awesome…" she continued rambling but Don just looked at her, his eyes soft and smile gentle – but she didn't pick up on that.

Then she started to excuse herself, heels making soft clacks as she moved closer to the door and out into the bullpen.

Don was calm as he moved to reach for the drawer where he kept two copies of _Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic_ – the one with the forged signature and the one she'd given him on election night – the best night of his life, and not just because Barack Obama was re-elected. He followed her out into the bullpen; she was already a good fifteen paces in front of him. "Sabbith!" he shouted, getting her attention along with everyone else's.

"You can't ever let me lead, can you?" he asked as she stared at him with wide eyes.

He held the books up and took a few steps closer and tossed them onto the desk she was standing beside not caring about the doe-eyed intern he'd just startled.

"Why do you still have that? It's not even my signature.," she asked stubbornly but refused to fully meet his gaze.

"Because it reminds me of how stubborn you were, threatening Neal and Gary to try to right a wrong that wasn't even your fault. How important it was to you to do the right thing," he nodded, "Open it."

She hesitated and reached to open the front cover. Inside was Gary's awful attempt at German and her signature (thankfully lacking a heart over the "i" in Sabbith) and then the actual pages of the book had been carved into, hollowing the book out. Inside of the hollowed out section were a variety of things that made her eyes widen. There was a photo strip of pictures they had taken once in a booth at the arcade in Chelsea Piers, movie stubs from a special rooftop screening of _Sweet Smell of Success_, a few post-it notes she'd left on his desk – some dating back to before they even started dating, and other things she would have never thought he would have saved.

"It reminds me of everything I love about you," he finally said before he closed the space between them. His hand reached, cradling the back of her neck firmly but gently and his other hand brushed her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Caught you off guard, didn't I?" he asked, a small smirk playing on his lips before he pulled her in for a kiss.

He knew that she loved to take charge and wondered, for a brief moment, just how much him taking control might bother her.

But as her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer, he deduced she didn't mind at all.

When they pulled away, they were fully aware of the eyes on them, but Don didn't seem to mind. He briefly caught Eliot's shit-eating grin over her shoulder as Gary handed him five dollars and wondered what the stipulation of that bet involved, before he turned back to Sloan and nodded, sincerely. "I love you," he said clearly. "I don't ever want you to doubt that, Sloan."

She swallowed thickly and nodded, the confusion in her eyes quickly dissipated and she took a deep breath. "I…" she faltered. "I think it's really cheesy that you keep all of that stuff in a hollowed out book, Keefer," she said, her confidence back and that air of challenge still in her voice.

"But you love that about me," he countered gently, accepting that she wasn't saying it back right away. "You know, you do have to let me lead now and then."

And then Sloan looked up at him with a look he hadn't seen in a long time, since the night he walked into his office and found her sitting there alone in the dark, hurt and confused about something her ex-boyfriend had done. "But until today, you've never flat out asked me to dance."

Don looked at her for a moment, fully understanding and not wanting to push it anymore, he bent his head to give her another kiss before a throat cleared behind them.

"You two want to break this up and join the meeting?" Charlie asked from the doorway of the conference room where Eliot, Mack, and Will were all sitting – waiting to discuss a special they were preparing.

* * *

**Monday, April 15, 2013: 2:30 p.m. EST.**

On Monday, they both had the afternoon to themselves. ACN was airing a special broadcast that afternoon from the Boston news office.

And so _Mid-Day Finance Report_ had been bumped and aired a special early morning broadcast. Sloan had promised to return to his apartment for a few blissful hours of relaxation before they both had to return to the office for his afternoon round-up meeting and her prep for _Market Round-Up_.

Don sat in bed on his laptop reading through some news alerts forwarded to him by the new Associate Producer for _Right Now_. He read the yellow ones; he knew not to ignore anything and to follow the gut that had been honed in the recent years.

Her throat cleared and he looked up and smiled as he drank in the sight of her, standing there in his Columbia University t-shirt, that covered her to the top of her thighs. She had her dress and her bag over her forearm and quickly deposited them on the floor near the foot of the bed.

"Work?" she asked. He quickly closed the laptop and placed it on the dresser, shaking his head.

"If it's important, someone will call," he nodded holding out a hand and folding down the covers on her side of the bed. Barefooted, she padded her way into the bedroom and climbed under the covers, slipping into his arms and resting her head on his shoulder.

"You _were_ great this morning," he pointed out, remembering that he hadn't quite complimented her while she was on her post-broadcast high on Friday wanted to let her know that she'd been doing a great job on-the-air lately.

She hummed out a soft noise of contentment and nodded, "Thanks," she offered, guilt in her voice. "Don, about Friday. I –"

"Sloan, you don't have to feel like you have to say –"

"Wait, let me finish," she insisted. "I've been engaged before, and he cheated on me. I've trusted people before, and they've let me down more than I thought possible. And I've spent a long time wondering if I'm just bad at picking the people I care about. But when you tell me that you love me and you look at me _that way_, I believe you.

"And I know that you're the best decision I ever made, a principal protected note with a guarantee of a great return on investment*. Too good to be true, but as real as it gets all at the same time." She reached up, fingertips delicately touching his cheek as if he wasn't real. "And that's terrifying. I like feeling like I'm in control because it means nothing can hurt me the way I've been hurt before," she said softly.

He reached to touch her fingers, grasping them with a reassuring squeeze. "I won't let you down," he promised softly.

"I know," she said softly. "You're not a bad guy. And I trust you," she said, soft but sincere. "Enough to try to let you lead every once and a while, but you have to be patient."

"Well," he started. "It took us long enough to figure this out," he gestured between them. "And so I think that I can afford to be a bit more patient, we have the rest of our lives." Sloan's eyes widened a bit and he chuckled, "Noted, patient on the future talk too," he promised, despite the fact that he knew tonight more than ever that he was with the woman he was meant to be with the rest of his life. "But you're the only dance partner I want."

"You know, I dance like Elaine from _Seinfeld_," she started. "I mean when I was younger, I thought I would take lessons but the truth is that me and rhythm never quite got al-"

"Sabbith, it's a metaphor," he laughed. He placed a finger under her chin to angle her head up for a gentle kiss that, within seconds, turned heated and passionate. As he held her close, it was as though he couldn't get enough of her - couldn't be close enough.

She met his gaze and smiled, opening her mouth to say something when suddenly his phone started to chime with text message alerts. "I can ignore it," he offered, but then her phone rang too and both of their gazes narrowed, quickly reaching for their respective phones and then jumping out of bed.

_**Apr. 15, 2013, 2:50 p.m.**__  
Two explosions reported at Boston Marathon. _

They dressed quickly and silently, Don walked around the bed and helped to zipper her dress before she picked up her bag and nodded at him, "I'll get us a cab," she said, starting towards the door as he moved to pack up his laptop and the rest of his things.

"I'm right behind you," he promised.

* * *

**Monday, April 15, 2013: 4:45 p.m. EST.**

Dating back before 2001, all New Yorkers (maybe all Americans) knew that living there also meant inheriting a certain level of fear. It only intensified after the September 11th attacks, and while the country had come together, and fears were sometimes able to fade into the background and allowed the city's residents to do something other than live in complete fear – certain moments jolted memories all back.

That was what Sloan believed anyway.

That summer, she had travelled from California to New York to intern for a couple of months at Merill Lynch and had left to return to California on August 20, 2001. Their office had been just across the street from the towers and she remembered the afternoons she'd catch glance at them on her way out to take her lunch. It had shaken her to her core – three weeks ago, and she would have been right across the street.

Now, she stood in the middle of the bullpen watching the footage from the attacks from the Boston Marathon Bombings she felt shaken again. Don and Elliot each stepped up, suddenly flanking her from either side.

"…The authorities are saying that they aren't sure if this is foreign or domestic," Elliot said to Don, as whatever conversation they'd been carrying out skidded to a halt as they stopped and followed her gaze to the screens.

Around them, the others called out frantically to each other, Charlie stood at the center of the room, barking out responses as Mack fluttered in and out from the production booth.

"I've got reports pouring from the web in that over 100 people are injured," Neal shouted.

"But the Boston PD is confirming that there are 2 dead and 23 injured," Kendra countered, her hand covering the mouthpiece of her phone.

"Go with the confirmed number," Charlie ordered.

"Mayor Bloomberg just released a statement about increased security in New York!" Tess shouted from her desk before she was on her way into the production booth to consult Mack.

"I'm going to go call my wife," Elliot said suddenly, excusing himself.

Jim was suddenly at their side in his place, he watched the screen and then grimaced. "It makes you think about the things and the people you care about, the things you've always meant to do and haven't." The couple didn't have to ask, but it was obvious that more things were weighing on Jim's mind, they wondered what it was – his time spent embedded overseas, the girlfriend he had on the road blogging for her beliefs, his family, or the girl not even thirty feet away that Don had once dated.

"It's awful," Sloan agreed, her voice hoarse and eyes wet with tears she hadn't let fall yet.

Don nodded, because there was nothing you could say in these situations to make it all right and he knew as much. Instead, he put an arm around her and pulled her closer, taking his own comfort in the fact that she was there. Then he felt her shoulders shake slightly and instantly he was guiding her away from the prying eyes and away from the others.

When they were out on the terrace she took a deep breath. "Jim is right, you know," she stated. "I keep watching and wondering what those people said that morning when they left their houses to their families and the people they loved about. If they'd communicated the way that they felt enough"

He looked at her and nodded, "But that's the thing about love," he said slowly. "When it's there – and both people know sometimes that's enough."

Sloan shook her head and looked at him. "Don, I lo-" she started so quietly he almost didn't hear it but quickly shook his head to cut her off.

"Nothing's going to happen, Sloan," he promised an impossible promise. "I don't want you to say it the first time because you're worried for some reason that you won't have another chance. This is the one thing I want us to do the right way."

"We never do anything the right way," she pointed out, her voice small and scared.

"Who says our way isn't the right way?" And she seemed to accept that and took his hand as he led her back into the building.

* * *

**Saturday, April 27, 2013: 1:30 a.m. EST.**

A weekend with their phones off, that was really what they had been hoping for but hadn't quite been able to arrange it.

Instead, Jim– who had strangely enough been getting along extremely well with Don in the recent few months – and Elliot had agreed intercept any messages that might be coming Don or Sloan's way from after that Friday's _Right Now_ wrapped until 5:30 a.m Saturday morning and only interrupt if it was an absolute emergency.

And so he took her out to dinner to their diner, they shared the cheesecake and – as the crowd of Friday night bar crawlers who'd stumbled in to put something other than liquid in their stomachs, and a few others just getting off their late shift, Sloan placed quarters in the juke box and played a song so old that only the two of them and the white-haired patrons in the corner booth recognized it. And as Sinatra crooned softly, Sloan met Don's curious gaze and looked at him as if he were stupid. "Ask me," she prompted.

Don grinned as he understood, "I thought you said you can't dance."

"Maybe I never had the right partner," she pointed out. That was all it took for him to slide out of the booth and offer out his hand.

The two of them swayed beside their table, they were exhausted from their long week at work but something kept them up through the entire song and uncaring of the curious glances they were receiving from some patrons and the fond smiles of their usual waitress and older customers that seemed to understand.

He pulled away slightly and lifted his arm. She let out a soft, tired giggle before spinning beneath his arm and letting him haul her body closer until they were pressed together and he bent down to kiss her lips.

"You're not a bad dancer," he said, his voice soft and his arm still around her waist.

She nodded, looking up at him and licking her lips before opening her mouth to speak. "I love you," she confessed.

"I know," he teased her with a small smirk that prompted her to smack his chest gently. "Thanks for letting me lead."

* * *

**AN: **Thank you for reading this story, I hope you enjoyed it. Please check out my profile and if we share any shows and/or ships, I do take some prompt requests but make no guarantees about timeliness.


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